


Duality

by Skeli



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Destroy Ending, F/M, Post-Mass Effect 3, but honey I don't do downer endings, rated teen for some language and vague depictions of major injuries, some fluff and some pain, told in both past and present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 17:00:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17267933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skeli/pseuds/Skeli
Summary: The good usually comes with the bad. Nobody knows that like Shepard.





	Duality

The sunlight creeps up their bed. It finds Shepard's face first; she always sunk lower on the pillows. Garrus is facing her, still sleeping. They weren't much for cuddling, not when they were both such light sleepers, but she could feel the weight of his leg over hers. He could never quite stay away.

_Burning. Everywhere, but mostly in her throat. She gasped for air, inhaled dust, and was thrown into a violent coughing fit. She pushed against the rubble, no grace or ease. The crushing feeling ceased with one final thrash. She saw the remains of the Crucible tumble down the pile of ruin she sat a top, but could not hear the impact of their fall. She could hear nothing but her ears ringing, and somehow that was the loudest noise she'd ever heard._

She takes the moment to edge closer, not enough to disturb him, but enough to feel the warmth radiating off him. He got cold easily, but soaked heat up just as well. She hated it when put his hands on her waist to warm them up. That's what she told him, anyway.

_She didn't remember falling. Seemed like one hell of a thing to forget, or sleep through. She marveled at the fact she was even alive as she attempted to stand. That's when she realized she couldn't feel her right leg._

He opens his eyes, sudden and sharp. His lids never fluttered gently open. He greeted the day with a keen awareness Shepard doubted he was born with. Blue wasn't a worthy word for his eyes, nor any of its many shades. They were something else altogether. She could never tell him that. It was sickly sweet and he'd love it far too much.

_She trudged on, grappling for balance on debris until she found a long piece of metal to use as a crutch. She wondered for hours, refusing to rest. She was afraid of never waking up again, to the world, to him. She picked a random spot in the distance, and told herself she could rest when she got there. The trick was that the spot moved along with her._

"'Morning," he mumbles.

His voice is deeper when drenched in sleep. Shepard's smile is her reply. He presses their foreheads together briefly and rises. Her hand slides up to the space he left on the bed, chasing his heat. She traces loops and whirl in the fabric while he takes a shower.

_Her right leg slowed her down more than a little. It made a trail in the dirt and dust behind her as she dragged it along scorched earth._

The sunlight glints off of the medals pinned to the wall. Anderson's shines the brightest. She's still thankful they let her keep it.

_Madness was never something that preyed upon her. She was too anchored. Something was amiss, off. She squeezed her eyes shut and reopened them. Sure enough, her spot in the distance was coming toward her._

Shepard summons the strength to get up. She lets her foot dangle over the edge of the bed. She's already sick of putting on the prosthetic, can't wait to get the official replacement. If she doesn't put it on before Garrus comes back, he'll fret and insist on helping her, but there are some things she has to do herself.

_"Goddamn motherfucking hell," the man said before spitting out the dust in his mouth._

_"Man after my own heart," Shepard replied, hoarse._

_She knew she must have looked bad, but the expression on the man's face was horror personified. Still, he moved to help her stand. He pulled her arm over his shoulder, his hand grasped her hip for purchase. Pain radiated up her spine and everything went black._

The fit on her fake leg wasn't quite right, but she has a laundry list of other things she prefers to complain about. Like who cooks breakfast or does the dishes. She smiles. They really weren't cut out for civilian life.

"Done," Garrus says emerging from the bathroom.

Shepard stands and turns to him. He's already dressed.

"Sure you don't need more preening time?" she asks.

"I know you love me the way I am."

She does, and she ought to tell him more often.

_Shepard woke up to a field hospital. It was the epicenter of a refuge  stitched together with sheer human will. Hope kept people running better than anything in the apocalypse._

_"You're gonna lose the leg," the doctor said."It'll fall off in a few days by itself if we do nothing."_

_It was the first thing he'd said to her. No hellos or pleasantries, but she could understand if he was feeling snappish that day. Her leg was still numb, but she could feel cool, dampened rags all over her body. The burns were starting to tingle, soon the pain would be unbearable._

_"Then get on with it," she said._

Shepard brushes her teeth with more force than necessary. She always has, but at least her smile is pristine, unlike the rest of her. She examines the scars in the mirror. Taut, pale pink, and absolutely everywhere. She, like that refuge she awoke in eight years prior, was also stitched together.

Years after it all, people asked what kept her going, and she supplied the proper patriotic response. It was for humanity, for the universe itself. She could never give up the good fight when people needed her.

It wasn't utter bullshit, she conceded. It was what kept her going up until the Crucible. Afterward...she supposed no one else ever survived their heroic sacrifice before, so it had been up to her to set the status quo.

No one expected much of a war hero burnt to a crisp, especially one they'd assumed dead. At that point, she had no audience. No expectations but her own, and he was out there somewhere, waiting for her to find him.

_It wasn't a sure thing. Everyone knew that, even after all the time and resources they put into it. But it was a shot, even if it was a shot in the dark. Shepard had thought she was in bad shape, but the flimsy shuttle that she intended to ride into the stars was inarguably the worse off between the two of them._

_"You going all the way to the Citadel?" Markus asked._

_"Eventually, God willing," Shepard replied, lacing her boots up."I've got a few stops to check out before then, though."_

_"I got a terrible feeling this is the last time I'm ever gonna see you, Shepard," Markus said._

_Shepard stood up and took a long look at the hunk of junk she had decided to trust with her life._

_"Try and keep the faith, buddy. For the both of us."_

Emerging from the bathroom, Shepard smells coffee brewing. She meanders into the kitchen still in her sweat pants. Garrus is nowhere to be seen, but he sometimes likes to spend his mornings tinkering with his rifles. In any case, he always leaves a pot of coffee on for her if she's running behind. Shepard has a well documented addiction to caffeine, and Garrus is a devoted enabler.

She sits at the table, mug warming her hands. It's her favorite one, Joker got it for her.

#1 Reaper Slayer

It still makes her crack a smile.

_Day seventy-seven on the shuttle was only different from day seventy-six in that the engine decided to go haywire. At least, she thought it was the engine. Maybe it wasn't, and that's why she couldn't fix it._

_She spent the next four days floating endlessly in the void, and judging from the star charts crumpled in her lap, she wasn't floating in the right direction._

_Madness wasn't something that plagued her, but she laughed into the nothingness so hard she brought tears to her eyes. It was funny. It was a joke. A fucking joke for her die like that._

_Again._

She spends her morning replying to messages from the old Normandy crew and sipping on coffee. Wrex sent the occasional update on Tuchanka, along with pictures of his kids. He always captions the photos complaints about their behavior to disguise how utterly enamored he is with his offspring, but Shepard knows the truth.

Joker asks if she wants to meet up sometime in the next week. She responds with a yes without even looking at her schedule. The anniversary of Hilary's death was three days ago, she needs to be a good friend.

Death has her thinking of Thane, of Mordin, of Legion. Anderson.

Shepard rubs her temples and squeezes her eyes shut. She takes another sip of her coffee and the final drops chase each other down her throat. She sets the mug down with a hard clack.

Silence.

_Lights flooded her vision, and turned the insides of her eyelid a bloody orange. She woke up, but doesn't remember falling asleep. She blinked once, twice._

_Her tired eye hadn't deceived her. It was a ship._

_It flashed its lights once, twice. Shepard did the same. Best they could do with no comm._

_The ship edged closer and opened the hatch to the storage bay. Shepard donned her spacesuit, praying there were no holes and leapt into the darkness. She shoved off the wreckage that had both saved and failed her._

_She floated over to the open hatch and it swallowed her whole._

Some things never change, like the ruthless accuracy of Shepard's right uppercut and how she uses a punching bag to escape her own thoughts. She's far too good at pretending the bag of hapless sand is her enemy. It's easy to focus on the imaginary face superimposed over the worn, brow beaten leather, and she doesn't have to remember it. Any of it. Them.

"Had to be me," Mordin's voice echoes from the depths of her mind.

The sand bag flies away from her clenched fist so forcefully that it swings high enough to unhook itself from the chain. It lands with a dull thud ten feet away.

"Did it?" she asks.

Her hand throbs.

_The hatch closed behind her, and there was no one to greet her. She kept her helmet on just to be safe, but was acutely aware that she had no weapon and was missing a leg. She wondered how they'd gotten such a large ship running again, and hoped they'd be willing to share the knowledge. Then, the door on the far side of the storage bay slid open._

_Her legs felt weak in an instant._

Shepard walks with purpose down the short hall way from the gym to the garage. Absently, she rubs her hand and tries to remember the lyrics to one of Mordin's crazy songs. It was so hard not to let him become a bad memory, but he deserved more than that. As much as Shepard liked to think people could change for the better, she hadn't truly believed it until Mordin undid what he had once seen as his greatest accomplishment.

"I am the very model of a scientist Salarian," she mumbles.

She finds it in herself to laugh because neither of them could sing for shit, and in this small way she can carry on the legacy of someone she could never hope to be, even in her wildest dreams.

_James filed in first, followed by Liara. James asked her to show any weapons she was carrying, voice loud and commanding.  Instead,  she threw her helmet on the ground and limped toward them as fast as she could manage. Liara recognized her immediately despite the scars._

_"Shepard!" she shouted._

_They met in an ungainly hug, but Shepard felt Liara trying to be gentle. She didn't care if it hurt though, so long as it was real. James yelled something down the hallway, and one by one her crew came through the doorway to swarm her with a welcome no one dreamed they'd be able to give._

The garage door is closed, but she can hear him humming along to music and the clinking of his tools. She rests her forehead against the door and listens for a bit.

 At least someone from the Normandy could carry a tune.

 _A hush goes over the small crowd gathered around her, and the crew begins to disperse. He stood in their wake like a statue_. _Shepard could see disbelief in his eyes, but it was grief that hung around his very being._

_Until she said his name, and something sparked. In a second he closed the distance between them._

Shepard strides into the garage like she owns the place, which she does. Garrus casts a single glance over his shoulder before looking back at the rifle in his hands.

"Looking for something?" he asks, smile evident on his voice.

_Garrus collapsed to his knees and folded her up in his arms. She felt him shaking, but he was solid in her arms. They'd both made it through hell and crawled back to each other. She'd found him._

_"Shepard," he said, voice a harsh gasp."Shepard."_

She walks over to him and wraps her arms around him, and is struck by what a privilege it is to be able to do so whenever she wants. A privilege she earned, no doubt, but she learned a long time ago not to take anything for granted, especially him. It was one thing to be in good company, but it was the most beautiful thing in the world to look at someone and see your future in them.

"You," Shepard says.

"Mission accomplished, commander," Garrus says."Should I take a break?"

He give her a suggestive raise of his eyebrow. There's a twinkle in his brilliant eyes. God, those eyes. 

"In a minute," she says."There's actually something I wanted to tell you..."

**Author's Note:**

> Happy New Year! I had this story 3/4 done and then my old laptop crashed, but I was finally able to recover it, thank goodness.
> 
> Comments are like a reunion with a missing love interest to me.


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